On March 4, the Audio Publishers Association (APA) announced the winners of the 2025 Audie Awards, which recognize distinction in audiobooks and spoken-word entertainment, at its 30th annual award ceremony in New York City. In lieu of Amy Sedaris, who was unable to host the event as planned, APA executive director Michele Cobb served as emcee for the ceremony.

The night's biggest honor, Audiobook of the Year, went to the memoir My Name Is Barbra, written and narrated by Barbra Streisand and published by Penguin Random House Audio. The audiobook also won in the autobiography/memoir category.

Accepting the award on behalf of PRH Audio were VP of audio production Karen Dziekonski and producer Matie Argiropoulos. ("We have two of the most difficult names in the audio business," Dziekonski joked.) "I've been doing this for 25 years, and this is my first time standing on this stage," Dziekonski said, "and I feel like everything I've done up until now has culminated in this massive production."

Dziekonski continued: "We want to thank the Audies judges for listening and evaluating 48 hours and 15 minutes," which she guessed "must be the longest audiobook narrated by the author," though she asked Cobb to confirm her theory. She thanked former Viking executive editor Rick Kot and audio editor Chris Benelli of Said Before Productions, who she said incorporated around 60 pieces of Streisand's music into the audiobook.

"Every recording session with Barbra was an absolute open door into her process—what a steadfast and committed artist she is, and a remarkable human being," she concluded.

Earlier in the evening, Whoopi Goldberg took the stage to accept the award for best narration by an author for her memoir Bits and Pieces (Blackstone Publishing). "So you all should know that I have probably each and every one of you in my phone," Goldberg remarked. "Because I have 10,000 Audible books, and the Kindle couldn't handle it, so we tried the phone and so far it's working really well." She continued: "I grew up dyslexic so hearing things read to me is heaven.... The fact that I'm in the room with you all who do this is so meaningful to me."

Other winners across the 28 awards categories included Rednecks by Taylor Brown, narrated by Ramiz Monsef (fiction); The Millicent Quibb School of Etiquette for Young Ladies of Mad Science by Kate McKinnon, narrated by McKinnon and Emily Lynne (humor); There's Always This Year by Hanif Abdurraqib, narrated by the author (nonfiction); This Could Be Us by Kennedy Ryan, narrated by Ines del Castillo and Jakobi Diem (romance); and Nothing: John Cage and the 4'33" by Nicholas Day, narrated by Fred Berman (young listeners).

For the second time in Audie history, the best male narrator and best female narrator categories were replaced with categories for best fiction and nonfiction narrators. These new categories were won by Julia Whelan (for The Women by Kristin Hannah) and Justin Vivian Bond (for Candy Darling by Cynthia Carr), respectively.

Between award announcements, the event also featured two supercuts of reminiscences from longtime audio professionals. In one, Eileen Hutton, formerly of Brilliance Audio, recalled the early days of the APA, saying: "We were all competitors, all of us back then, fierce competitors, but we knew we had to work together to build awareness of the industry. And we did."

In another, several professionals weighed in on changes in the industry. PRH Audio global president Amanda D'Acierno said one new development is that "it's vanishingly rare for a bestseller not to have an audiobook edition." Jenny Frost, formerly of Scholastic and Random House, counted "going from abridgments to unabridged recordings" among big changes to the industry, while Beth Anderson, formerly of Audible, and Tim Ditlow, formerly of Listening Library, pointed to the rise of audio-first content and multivoice recordings, respectively.

The complete list of the 2025 Audie Award winners can be found here.